


Stranger in a Strange Land

by Zara_Zee



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Apocalypse world, Dean Winchester Big Bang, F/M, Het and Slash, M/M, Multi, Show level violence, Threesomes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 22:23:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17816624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zara_Zee/pseuds/Zara_Zee
Summary: The rift closes just as the Rebels arrive, leaving everyone stuck in Apocalypse World. In the ensuing battle, Lucifer and Gabriel are killed, and both Michael and Jack are severely weakened. With Michael lying low while he heals and Jack in some sort of Nephilim stasis coma, the Rebels retreat to Singer Salvage to regroup and take stock.  Apocalypse World reminds Dean of Purgatory. It’s bloody. Messy. With way more than 31 flavors of bottom-dwelling nasties. Dean likes the 360-degree combat. He likes the purity. And until Jack is powered up again, he’s more than happy to stay and fight the good fight in a world where he doesn’t have to hide who and what he is.And those nightmares he’s getting? Where he’s travelling around the world—the real world—asking people what they want; tormenting them; hurting them; and sometimes even killing them? He’s just gonna repress that shit with large quantities of Hunters Helper; because right now, there’s a little voice inside Dean’s head telling him that he’s exactly where he’s supposed to be.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Not mine. Written for fun, not profit. 
> 
> A huge thank you to Amberdreams for her awesome art which can be found [HERE](https://amberdreams.livejournal.com/608090.html) and to my beta reader Endlessevalina for her invaluable input. Thanks also to laughablelament for moderating this Dean-centric challenge, it's my first time and it's been fun! :)

 

Cassie comes with a cry and Dean holds himself motionless, buried deep inside her, and makes sure she’s completely finished before he pulls out. He rolls onto his back beside her, breathing hard, because this universe’s version of Cassie Robinson is every bit as athletic in the sack as his Cassie had been.

“That was awesome,” Cassie says. “Now get out.”

Dean turns to face her, his eyes wide. “What?”

Cassie frowns. “I told you this was just sex; that you couldn’t stay the night. It was fun, but now you need to leave.”

“I wasn’t planning on staying the night,” Dean says, even though he totally was. “But you could at least give me five minutes to get my breath back.”

“Malik’s raiding party is due home tonight, and I want you long gone before he gets here.”

Dean rolls out of bed with a sigh and collects his clothes. It’s not like it’s the first time he’s had to do the walk of shame with the spectre of a partner due home any minute haunting his departure, but it does sting a little to be doing it with Cassie; even if she’s not _his_ Cassie.

The campsite is quiet as Dean strolls across it, back toward the tent he shares with his brother.

His Mom, Bobby Singer and Ketch are sitting around a small campfire, and it’s still early, so Dean veers sideways and goes to sit with them.

Bobby hands him a silver hip flask and Dean takes an appreciative swig of moonshine.

“Cassie kicked you out, huh?” Bobby says.

Dean shrugs. “Malik’s due back tonight. We had some fun, but I don’t wanna step on any toes.”

“Attitudes are different here,” Mary says. “More open. Maybe Cassie didn’t want Malik to find you in their bed, his first night back, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be invited to join them in a couple days.”

Dean stares at her. He can feel his neck flushing. Mary may look like his sister, but this is his _mom_ talking about threesomes. It’s…uncomfortable.  

“Threesomes can be fun,” Ketch says with a leer and it sounds so incongruous coming out of his stuffy British mouth.

Dean is about to regale him with a raunchy tale about the night he spent with the Doublemint twins when he remembers that he’s sitting next to his mom.

Who’s blushing.

He looks back at Ketch who’s still leering and then at Bobby who’s staring awkwardly at his feet, and Dean really doesn’t like the picture that his mind is starting to put together. Suddenly, he’d like to be anywhere but here.

He babbles some kind of lame excuse and hurries for his tent, with Ketch’s quiet laughter ringing in his ears as he flees.

Apparently the universe hasn’t finished fucking with him yet though, because his arrival in the tent is greeted by the sight of Sammy’s broad, naked back and the sound of girlish squealing.  

“Shit,” Dean says.

Sam turns around and glares at him. “You said you wouldn’t be home tonight! Don’t wait up, you said.”

The girl—Michelle, one of the camp’s mechanics, he realizes—peers around Sam and smiles coquettishly at him.

“Always room for one more, right Sam?” she says.

Sam’s eyes widen. “He’s my brother!”

She grins, unrepentant. “So? Doesn’t mean you can’t share me.”

Dean thinks he felt a little less panicked when they were attacked by those mutant vampires.

“I’m,” he starts to back out of the tent. “Gonna go,” he fumbles with the tent flap, “and do,” he ducks out of the tent and stumbles, falls on his ass, “the thing,” he scrambles away to the sound of Michelle’s laughter.

Dean flees. He crosses the yard, away from where his Mom, Ketch and Bobby are sitting and before he knows what he’s doing, he’s outside the fences of Singer Salvage, beyond the sigils, in the area where Cas has set up his camp.

Singer Salvage, which is currently doing duty as the Rebel camp, is warded against angels and the Rebels weren’t prepared to make themselves vulnerable to Michael’s angels just so that Cas could come inside.

Dean still feels a little guilty that Cas is out here alone, but he couldn’t leave Sammy. Not so soon after his most recent death and resurrection.

“Hello, Dean.”

Bobby had provided Cas with a tent and a couple of folding chairs, the type with net cup (or beer bottle) holders in the arms. Cas is sitting in one of them, so Dean takes the other.

“What’cha doin’, Cas?”

“I am monitoring Angel Radio,” Cas says. “Listening for anything that may give us warning that an attack on the camp is imminent.”

“Oh. Do you do that every night?”

Cas nods. “I am trying to be of use. I know that the Rebels aren’t…comfortable with me.”

That’s an epic understatement. The only reason Bobby hadn’t slaughtered Cas on sight is that he hadn’t been wearing a necklace of baby ears. Dean’s pretty sure that was hyperbole.

This world’s Castiel had been wearing Jimmy Novak too, so he had looked the same as Dean’s Cas, but he’d been a scarred, mentally disturbed torture master. Cas had been horrified by his counterpart and had killed him weeks ago, but Dean completely understands why the Rebels are uncomfortable around Cas. Still, it sucks that his friend is out here alone.

“I’m sorry about Gabriel,” Dean tells Cas.

Cas inclines his head.

“I mean, the guy was a dick, but he came through for us more than once, so…”

“I’m glad we were able to stop the Apocalypse on our world, Dean. And now, we get the chance to save this world too.”

Dean frowns. “We’re gonna help while we’re here, sure, but we’re just staying until Jack’s back at full power, then he’s gonna open up another rift and we’re going home.”

Castiel nods. “The people back home are safe. They have already been saved. But the people here? They still need saving. Is that not the mission? Saving people, hunting things?”

“Well, yeah, but…”

“There is so much good we can do if we stay here,” Cas says fiercely. “I feel that we are in the right place. Playing our part.”

Dean cocks his head. “Playing our part?”

Cas nods. “Setting things right. This is a second chance to make things turn out the way they should.”

Dean supposes that Cas has a point. Sort of. The apocalypse has already happened here, but if they can get rid of Michael, maybe, eventually, things can return to normal for this world. And he figures Cas is feeling guilty, not just for the actions of his counterpart in this world, but for the behavior of the angels in general.

“We’ll do what we can,” Dean promises his friend, and Cas’s grateful smile warms his soul.

Dean ends up spending the night in Cas’s tent, because the angel doesn’t sleep and Dean figures why risk cock-blocking his brother when there’s a perfectly good air mattress and sleeping bag going unused right here.

He wakes at first light and finds Cas sitting cross-legged on the floor of the tent.

“Cas?” Dean rubs at his gritty eyes. “You okay, man?”

“Your sleep was troubled,” Cas tells him. “I soothed you.”

Dean pulls a face at that, but he guesses he can’t bitch at the angel for pulling him out of a nightmare. He doesn’t remember what he was dreaming about; he has a vague sense that he was drowning; gasping for breath; but it ain’t like he doesn’t have several lifetimes’ worth of nightmare material to draw from.

“Thanks,” he says. He pulls on his boots and his jacket. The silver hip flask in his inner jacket pocket is a comforting weight against his chest. He pulls it out and takes a couple of swigs of whiskey to settle his nerves.

“I’ll see you later,” he says to Cas. “Gonna head into camp for some chow.”

Bobby and his Mom are on breakfast duty. Dean helps himself to scrambled eggs, baked beans and a mug of coffee, and nods at Cassie and Malik, before sitting down with Charlie.

Sam is nowhere to be seen.

“So,” Charlie says. “You spent the night with Cas.”

“Yeah. Sammy had company and Cas’s got a bed he never uses. Figured I’d crash there, give Sammy some space.”

Charlie looks a little disappointed. “So you didn’t…?”

Dean frowns. “Didn’t what?”

“You and Cas? You know?”

 Dean’s eyes widen as the penny finally drops. “The guy’s an Angel of the Lord!” he hisses. “Pretty sure being into dick would be against the rules for him.”

Charlie raises an eyebrow. “Firstly,” she says, “The angels have made it pretty clear that God is utterly indifferent to human sexuality. And secondly, Cas isn’t actually human, he’s a wave of celestial intent, which means Cas doesn’t actually have a gender, he’s just borrowing Jimmy’s.”

Dean swallows. “Right. Well Jimmy was a married Bible thumper, so I’m pretty sure he wasn’t gay.”

Charlie raises her eyebrows at that.

“Not that he’s in the building any more anyway,” Dean rambles.

And then he has to explain about Cas’s various rebuilds and how Jimmy’s soul moved on a long time ago. Charlie is fascinated.

“So you and Cas,” she says finally. “You’ve never, you know?”

Dean figures he must look pretty spooked, because Charlie’s expression becomes soft and compassionate. “It’s just that he has this really intense way of looking at you, and I’ve noticed you checking out guys before, so I just wondered.”

Dean feels his eyes get improbably wider and Charlie grins. “You are not as subtle as you think you are, Mister. But don’t worry, nobody cares.”

Dean takes a long slurp of coffee. “Cas is a seraph,” he says, when he’s got his thoughts together. “Warrior class. In our world he rescued me from Hell and, well, we’ve been through a lot together. He’s a friend. In this life, you don’t get many friends. And even when you get friends, you don’t always get to keep ‘em for long. Cas is…Cas is family. I love him like a brother. And he feels the same way about me and Sam.”

Charlie nods and looks like she’s about to say something, but then her eyes glaze over and she stands up. “Uh, I gotta go. Peace out.”

She practically runs from the table and Dean turns to see what’s caught her attention. It’s Liesel and, well, Dean can relate. Liesel is hot.

Dean finishes off his eggs and beans and heads over to the dish trough. He scrapes off his plate and washes it and half turns when he hears someone come up behind him.

It’s Malik.

“Hey man,” Malik says.

His tone is friendly, but Dean doesn’t trust it.

“You do know me and Cassie are a thing, right?” Malik says in the same friendly tone.

“Yep,” Dean says.

“Good,” Malik claps a hand on his shoulder. “I ain’t sayin’ we won’t invite you in for a little fun from time-to-time, just don’t want you gettin’ any ideas.”

Dean looks over his shoulder to where Cassie is sitting. “She know we’re having this conversation?” he says. “Because the Cassie from my world, she’d be pissed if she thought someone else was speaking for her.”

Malik looks momentarily sheepish and then he laughs. “You got me. Look, you’ve been here five minutes and you’re a legend already. And maybe you and your world’s Cassie had something, but…I’m just asking you not to mess this up for me, okay? Plus,” Malik looks him up and down, “you’re kinda hot. So I’m more than happy for you to join us every now and then.”

Dean thinks he kinda likes this world. “Sure,” he says easily. “Why not?”

Dean goes and gets another coffee. He chats with his mom and Bobby and when Sam and Michelle finally make an appearance, Dean gives them a round of applause for how well they obviously wore themselves out last night, complete with lots of eyebrow waggling and back slapping.

Sam rolls his eyes. “Shut up, jerk,” he takes the coffee that Dean hands him. “You’re just jealous.”

“Excellent come back, Sammy. No really.”

Michelle snorts. “This from the man who stammered and stumbled and fell over his own feet when he was invited in for a threesome.”

“He’s my _brother_!” Dean and Sam say in unison.

The whole camp is soon involved in the light-hearted ribbing and banter and Dean doesn’t think he’s ever felt so at home before. All too soon, though, Bobby is assigning the day’s chores and Dean finds himself walking the perimeter with Sam, checking and refreshing all the warding.

Dean side-eyes his little brother as Sam repaints Enochian symbols on a tree trunk. Sammy’s tongue is poking out of his mouth and his brow is furrowed in concentration, but he looks happy. Content.

Dean can’t even remember the last time he saw Sam’s shoulders looking this relaxed. Dean figures that getting laid probably has something to do with it. He himself has always been a casual sex sort of guy. Sex is fun. He has a good time, the other person has a good time, and then he’s on his way, his heart not involved. Sammy though, has never liked to get up close and personal with someone until he’s made a connection with them. And given the complexities of their lives, the opportunities for making the kind of connection that Sam needs if he’s gonna do the deed with someone, well, they’re few and far between.

Dean tilts his head. Huh. So the chances are, this wasn’t just a casual thing for Sam.

“Dude,” Sam says. “Quit staring at me.”

Dean tugs at his ear. “So, uh, you and Michelle, huh?”

Sam tenses. “Does it really need asking? You walked in on us, remember?”

“I walked in on sex,” Dean says, matter-of-factly. “That ain’t what I’m asking.”

Sam’s shoulders relax again. “I dunno, Dean,” he says. “I really like her,” he chuckles. “That sounds so middle school. But yeah, I think I could really…I haven’t felt like this about anyone since Jess.”

And that right there? His little brother _happy_ , is everything Dean wants in the world.

Maybe Cas is right. Maybe they should stick around for a while. Even once Jack is back up and running.

After they’ve finished the warding, they go and spend some time with Cas. Cas reports that Angel radio has been quiet and he suggests a couple of changes to the warding that would make it even more effective. Sam thinks he’s right and gets quite excited about it, but says he’ll have to run it past Bobby first; because the camp leader still doesn’t fully trust Cas.

They follow up the visit to Cas with a visit to Jack, who’s still lying comatose in the tent next to their mom’s. Mary is in with him, reading to him from a battered copy of _The Hobbit_.

She stops reading when they boys enter the tent, but Dean signals her to keep going and both he and Sam sit down beside Jack.

“They quickly poled and pushed all the barrels together into the shallows, and when they had counted them they roped them together and left them till the morning. Poor dwarves!” Mary reads, and Dean can’t help smiling.

It’s been a long time since he and Sam got to listen to their mom reading a story. It’s nice.

Eventually, Mary folds back the page she’s on and closes the book. She drops a light kiss on Jack’s cheek and speaks to him softly. “You concentrate on getting better, Jack. We’re all here for you.”

She sighs and looks up at Dean and Sam. “It’s just as well he’s put himself into some kind of Nephilim stasis,” she says. “Because we really aren’t medically equipped to cope with a coma patient.”

They talk quietly for a while, about Jack’s projected recovery, about how quickly he’ll be up to creating another rift, but none of them really know what to expect. And Dean’s on lunch duty today, so he bows out of the conversation and heads over to the supply tent.

Maggie and Pete are already in there, sorting through cans. Dean picks up a can of tinned hot dogs.

“Ooh,” he says. “I used to make these for me and Sam when I was a kid. Chop ‘em up, fry ‘em, add tomato puree, a bit of salt and pepper, stir in some cooked rice. Fills you up and don’t taste too bad either.”

“Great,” Maggie shoves a big bag of rice into his arms. “You just appointed yourself head chef.”

This time around, Dean throws in some canned kidney beans, some garlic and some mixed herbs too, and the meal is well-received by the Rebels.

“Very creative, Dean,” Mary says.

Dean snorts. “I got a lot of experience getting creative with food.”

It makes Mary look guilty, which wasn’t Dean’s intention.

“Not your fault, Mom,” he says. “You were dead at the time.”

“And Dean did a great job looking after us,” Sam chimes in.

Mary’s scowl is impressive. “I know. I can see that. You grew like a weed, after all. But he shouldn’t have had to; he should never have been put in that position. I know things were…difficult for your father after I…died. I appreciate that his entire world got turned upside down; that he not only lost me; he learned what was really out there. I _know_ John. I know he did what he thought was right. But sometimes I get so damn mad at him that I just want to resurrect him so I can give it to him with both barrels!

Sam snorts and Dean smiles wryly.

“Well you’ll be pleased to hear that Sam made it his mission growing up to challenge dad on everything and give him a real hard time.”

Sam looks almost embarrassed at that, but he nods.

“It’s true,” he says. “There was a lot I didn’t understand when I was a kid. A lot I was angry about. The older I get, the better I can see where Dad was coming from.”

It’s almost funny the way they’ve practically reversed their positions on Dad. Dean knows his dad did the best he could under difficult circumstances and he still respects the hell out of him. But…the older _he_ gets, the more he realizes that the burdens his dad put squarely on his shoulders weren’t fair. Not at all.

And learning that his dad had been heading down to Windom, Minnesota on the regular to play happy families with his surprise second-chance son, Adam? That had been gutting.

Dean had gone through his dad’s journal and compared it with his own notes after that bombshell dropped, and he’d been even more gutted when he’d realized that his dad’s first visit to Adam had coincided with the aftermath of Sam leaving for Stanford. Dean had been tossed aside by his father and left to grieve alone in a crappy motel room, while John took Adam to watch baseball games and eat hotdogs. Dean can’t even begin to articulate how betrayed he’d felt when he’d realized that at the same time as John Winchester had torn Dean’s family apart by telling Sam to never come back, he’d been making a new family of his own. His dad had found a replacement for Sam, and he’d deliberately kept Dean away from him; he’d gone out of his way to have regular normal-family hang-out time with Adam, but he’d almost never made that same time for Dean and Sam. That knowledge had put a serious dent in the way Dean felt about his father.  

Then again, Adam got eaten by a ghoul before he even finished college and he and Sam are, miraculously, still kicking. So maybe they didn’t get the short straw after all.

Dean’s feelings about his father are complicated, to say the least, and he’s not sure he likes the pitying way his mom is examining him right now either, but before she can say anything, Bobby clears his throat loudly and demands everyone’s attention.

“As you all know, the raiding party returned last night,” Bobby says. “First off, I have to tell you all that the Northern POW Camp has shut up shop and the garrison of Angels that was stationed there has moved on. I’m very sorry to have to say that our party found Gerhard’s body there, strung up, with his eyes burnt out,” there’s a collective sound of grief and  Bobby takes off his baseball cap and calls for a minute’s silence in memory of their fallen comrade. “Gerhard was a brave man,” he continues, once the minute is up, “and we’ll all feel his loss,” he clears his throat. “Secondly, the party came across a horde of Tempter Demons, to the south of the Northern Camp. That’s way too close for comfort, so we’re sending out a hunting party. Who wants in?”

Dean can’t raise his hand quickly enough.


	2. Chapter 2

This? This is the life. Dean ducks and whirls; swinging his scimitar as he comes up and neatly severing the Tempter Demon’s head from its body. The scimitar (and in fact most of the Apocalypse World weapons) are plated with the melted metal of an angel blade—not enough juice to kill an angel, but more than enough for most of this world’s nasties. Dean loves this sword and he smiles fondly at the blood-dripping blade, but there’s no time to celebrate, no time to pause and congratulate himself on a job well done, because there’s another Tempter coming up behind him, snarling and bellowing, and Dean’s very existence has narrowed down to the fight: spin, swing, thrust, parry. An endless cycle of violence; a rhythmic, choreographed _danse macabre_ , with Dean as Death, personally escorting the demons to their afterlife.

Finally, after an eternity, or maybe only a few minutes, there are no demons left to slaughter and Dean circles around, wary, weapon at the ready. Sam approaches, softly, his weapons holstered and his empty hands held soothingly before him.

“Easy, Dean,” he says.

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“Just making sure you know the fight’s over,” Sam replies.

“Yeah,” Dean sheaths his scimitar in its scabbard and rubs at his beard.

It feels sticky and his hand comes away red.

“Could do with a shower,” he says. “It’s a shame Bobby’s house burnt down in this world too.”

Damn does he miss the Bunker’s bathrooms with their awesome showers and amazing water pressure.

The team—which consists of Dean, Sam, Ketch, Leisel, Charlie, Renee and Malik—clean up as best they can with bottled water and total up their kill count. Dean slaughtered the most demons, by far, and he can tell that even Ketch is impressed.

They pile up the Tempters, sprinkle salt and pour kerosene on them and then Dean lights them up.

Dean gets his hip flask out and takes a long drink. He offers it around, but there are no takers.

“All we need now is ‘smores,” he says and no-one looks at him like he’s crazy.

Dean stops by Cas’s camp on the way back to Singer Salvage and Cas cleans him up the angel way, which isn’t as much fun as a bath, but is a lot easier than hauling buckets of water and heating up the outside barrel tub. Dean isn’t a huge fan of outdoor bathing, not when he has to do it in a tub where his knees are pressed up against his ears when he sits in it.

Dean tells Cas about the battle with the Tempters. In great detail. He may even act out a couple of his more impressive kills.

“Hey, next time we go out, you should come too,” he tells the angel. “I’ll talk to Bobby. You are a soldier, after all, and smiting demons has gotta be more fun than moping around here all day.”

“I would like that,” Cas says.

He then tells Dean that he’s been hearing some chatter on angel radio, but they seem to be speaking in some sort of shorthand code and he’s not quite sure what they’re talking about.

“The probably know you can hear them,” Dean says.

Cas agrees. “I am fairly certain they are planning to move some prisoners. But from where, to where, I have not been able to ascertain.”

Dean nods. “Well keep working on it, that’d be good intel.” He stretches and gets to his feet. “I’ll put in a good word for you with Bobby, see if I can get you on the next Hunt.”

Back at the camp, the game hunting team has obviously had some success and some kind of pig-like creature is roasting on a spit. They eat it with canned vegetables and wash the meal down with home-brewed rotgut.  

Dean’s a little tipsy when Cassie and Malik invite him to join them in their tent, but he goes willingly. He’s expecting that he and Malik will focus on Cassie, but that’s not what happens. Instead, _they_ seem intent on sharing _him_ and Dean’s cool with that, it’s just…yeah…not what he expected.

It’s been a few years since he last did the guy-on-guy thing, over a decade in fact. He’d been nineteen when Rhonda Hurley made him try on her pink satin panties. And then she’d introduced him to her twin brother Robbie, which is the main reason he never mentions his hook-up with Rhonda to anyone. He couldn’t even bring himself to mention Robbie when he told _himself_ about it, back in that bizarre 2014 world that Zachariah sent him to.

The threesome had been an eye opening experience, to say the least. Dean has always been a hedonist; if it feels good do it, has been his personal motto for a long time; and the encounter had gotten him thinking. Maybe he would’ve explored the side of himself that liked sucking dick and getting his prostate pounded years ago if it hadn’t been for the hunt in Miami that took place a few weeks after his hook-up with Rhonda and Robbie.

He and his dad had been hustling pool in a bar after a successful Vetala hunt, when a coach-load of men came in, fresh off a gay cruise boat. Dean had been trying to decide if he was brave enough to make a move on a guy, when his dad had made a couple of cruel off-hand comments about ‘fags’ and Dean had shoved that side of himself deep down into a box and drowned it with alcohol.

Now, though, he’s nearly forty, he’s died more times than he can remember, he’s been to Hell and back and he’s saved the world; a lot. He’s way past giving a shit about ‘societal norms’, as Sam calls them, and he doesn’t care squat what people think about him. Also? This isn’t his world and the _societal norms_ seem to be different here.

Between Cassie’s tongue and Malik’s fingers they get him wet and open, while taking it in turns to make out with him. He fucks Cassie while sucking Malik and then Malik fingers him again while he’s inside Cassie. He uses massage oil this time and presses against Dean’s prostate until he comes. Dean pulls out of Cassie, but that’s all he has time to do before Malik takes hold of his hips and slides his dick into Dean’s ass, slow and easy. Dean figures he won’t get hard again—he’s not nineteen any more—but then Cassie wiggles underneath him and gets his dick in her mouth.   

“Too much,” he says, because he’s just come and he’s still feeling really sensitive.

Cassie just sucks harder, swirling her tongue around the tip of his dick until he’s so over-stimulated that he starts to squirm. She deep throats him then and it’s not long before Dean’s rock hard again and steaming toward a second orgasm. Cassie pulls off his dick with a plop and rolls over, getting up on her hands and knees beneath him and shoving her ass in his face. Dean gets the message and Malik pauses in his pounding for long enough for Dean to slide into Cassie again. He doesn’t actually have to do much, because Malik is controlling the pace, plowing into Dean with enough force to push Dean into Cassie. He feels a bit like a sex toy and honestly? He kind of likes it. He doesn’t have to think, doesn’t have to take charge, he just has to _feel_ and _enjoy_. And boy is he enjoying.

They clean up with bottled water and towels and this time, when Dean starts gathering his clothes to leave, Cassie protests and drags him back to the bed.

“Stay,” she says.

And Malik nods, so Dean agrees.

It’s a squash, but it’s warm and comfortable enough and Dean falls asleep quickly.

\--

_“What do you want?”_

Dean blinks awake and finds himself lying on a cot in a small cell. It has no door, but two stained glass windows, and he frowns and wonders what’s going on.

_“You preach the gospels, yet you do not live them. Is this a life of humility? You have a mansion. And an expensive car. Paid for with money raised for God. Are you God, Joel?”_

Dean gets out of bed and goes over to one of the windows. His vision is obscured a little by the stained glass, but he can see a familiar looking guy standing beside a big fancy bed, looking terrified.

_“What do you want?”_

Dean looks around for the speaker, but he can’t see him.

The guy—Joel—starts to say that he wants a righteous world, filled with good Christian soldiers and the voice laughs.

Joel falls to his knees, screaming and clutching at his head and Dean recognizes him now, he’s that televangelist who wouldn’t open his Church to storm victims after Hurricane Harvey. The guy’s a douche, but Dean doesn’t want to see him hurt, so he hammers on the window and yells for whoever is hurting Joel to stop.

There’s a dark chuckle which seems to reverberate all around him and then Dean is gasping awake, flailing, in between Malik and Cassie.

“You okay, Dean?” Malik says.

“Yeah,” Dean rubs at his temple. “Weird dream.”

It’s not the first weird dream he’s had; weird dreams and nightmares aren’t exactly uncommon for Dean. After forty years in Hell it would be stranger if he _didn’t_ have weird, bad dreams. But the ones he’s been having here in Apocalypse World have been strange even for him.

He’s been dreaming about drowning a lot, which is weird because that’s never been a fear of his and it ain’t something that happened in Hell. He’s also had a few dreams where he wakes up in a coffin and he can’t breathe and, well, that did happen, so that makes sense.

And then there are the _other_ dreams. In _those_ dreams he’s awake in bed with his eyes closed and suffering from sleep paralysis. He can hear the Voice asking people what they want. He can’t always hear the answers, but he can always hear the screams that follow.

Tonight was the first night that Dream-Dean has been able to open his eyes; to get up out of bed and see where he was. He’s still not entirely clear on that.

Weird ass dreams. He fumbles through his clothes for his hip flask and takes a long swallow and then he lies awake until morning.

\--

As promised, Dean puts in a good word for Cas with Bobby and seeing as how Dean is personally prepared to vouch for Cas, to guarantee that he won’t stab the Rebels in the back or betray them to Michael’s angels, Bobby agrees to let him fight and hunt with the team.

After breakfast, Dean walks the boundary with Sam, refreshing the warding again, and then he goes to tell Cas the good news.

Castiel is pacing anxiously when Dean arrives and Dean can’t get a word in edgeways before Cas is telling him that he’s cracked the code, that he knows where the Angels are taking the prisoners from and where they’re taking them to.

Dean goes and gets Bobby and Bobby listens to what Cas has to say and then asks the angel how he can be sure it’s not a trap.

“Like you said, they know you’re listenin’ in.  Maybe this is an ambush?”

Cas’s face falls. “Maybe,” he says. “I _think_ they were trying to keep me from finding out, but maybe that was part of their plot. If it was too easy, I wouldn’t fall for it. You could be right Bobby.”

Bobby seems surprised by Cas’s admission. “You ain’t like the angels around here,” he says. “Not a one of them would ever admit to weakness or uncertainty.”

Cas smiles. “I was no different when I first came to Earth.”

Dean snorts.

“But living amongst and fighting with humans for so many years has taught me why my father favours humanity; why he loves you all so very much. And it has taught me humility. To put it in Dean’s words, I have now removed the stick from my ass.”

Bobby’s eyes widen, his lips twitch and his face turns several interesting shades of red and pink before he finally bursts out laughing, bellowing guffaws that Dean has never heard from the man before.

Bobby still won’t approve the angel warding being taken down, but Castiel agrees with him on that. Bobby does, however, call a war council, which takes place at Cas’s camp, to decide whether or not they should risk acting on Cas’s intel.

In the end, Sam puts it best. “We can’t _not_ act on it,” he says. “People’s lives are at stake, so we’ve gotta risk it. At least we’re aware it could be a trap.”

Bobby gets out the big map and spreads it out across Cas’s camping table. They look at where the angels are, where they’re going and the most likely route from A to B.

Dean is a little perplexed that the Rebels are expecting the angels to travel on foot, but Bobby explains that there are a lot of winged demons and Cas confirms that flight in Apocalypse world does often involve mid-air fights with demons.

“I know you think we ‘teleport’,” Cas says, complete with air quotes. “But we actually just fly really fast, using the spaces in between dimensions as short cuts. Those spaces, here, are thick with demons. We can fight them and prevail without too much difficulty, but not while carrying human prisoners.”

Bobby decides he wants Cas on this mission and if Cas is going Dean is going and if Dean is going Sam is going. Ketch, Charlie and Liesel make up the rest of the mission team and they decide to leave at first light tomorrow.

Dean is invited to spend the night in Risa’s tent. She’s a feisty woman and Dean thinks she seems familiar. It’s not until she’s riding him hard and breathlessly telling him that they have an amazing connection that he remembers getting his face slapped hard when Zachariah sent him to 2014.

Dean declines Risa’s offer to stay the night, saying he’s got a lot to do to get ready for the mission tomorrow. He doesn’t, but the 2014 version of Risa was possessive and that’s shit he doesn’t need. He doesn’t go back to his and Sam’s tent, because he doesn’t want a reprise of the night before last. So once again he heads out to Cas’s campsite and crashes there.

\--

_“Why are we here? I know why I’m here: To ask you a question.”_

Dean blinks awake and finds himself back in the cell with the stained glass windows. He gets up and crosses to them. There’s an Arabic-looking man sitting back on his haunches on the floor and Dean frowns because the outside of his cell looks very different to the way it looked the other day. He supposes that’s dream logic, because he has to be dreaming, right?

_“The same question I’ve spent weeks traveling around this world asking all sorts of people. Holy men, leaders, killers. And now I come to you, Jamil Hamed. What do you want?”_

Dean stops watching because he knows how this question goes. Instead he prowls around the cell, trying to find a way out, but there’s nothing, just a cell with dark red walls and a white ceiling. No door. No obvious way in or out. Maybe he could break the windows? Dean returns to them and studies them: they’re sort of round or maybe oval, and a swirling mixture of greens, yellows, and white.

The Voice is booming again.

_“And that’s the problem with you. You’re lost... And not worth saving.”_

Dean sees Jamil’s lips moving, but can’t hear what he says.

“What I always wanted,” the Voice intones, deep and resonating, “a better world.”

And that’s when the screaming starts.

“Stop it!” Dean yells, banging on the window. “Stop hurting people!”

There’s pressure then and his head feels like it might implode. He’s drowning. He can’t breathe. He’s _pushed_. Down. Down.

\--

Dean gasps awake, flailing and fighting. Cas is beside him with his hands held up in the universal gesture of submission.

“You were screaming in your sleep,” Cas says.

Dean takes a deep breath. “Sorry, man. Nightmare.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Castiel asks.

Dean shakes his head. “Not really. What time is it?”

Castiel tells him that it will soon be light, so they get up and Dean heads back to the main camp to get ready, to have some breakfast and a couple of tumblers of Bobby’s rotgut to stop his hands from shaking, and to pack for the mission.

\--

Dean is quiet as they walk; following the route they’d plotted on Bobby’s map yesterday. Ketch is taking point, Charlie and Liesel are together behind him, deep in quiet conversation, Sam and Dean follow behind them, AK47s loaded with angel killing bullets at the ready, and Cas is behind them, watching their six.

Four hours in they stop to eat and to re-fill their water canteens. They sit for a while, resting, and Dean looks at Sam, sprawled beneath a tree, sipping at his water and looking content.

He goes and sits down beside him. “Things are still going well with Michelle, I take it?”

Sam smiles broadly. “Yeah,” he pauses. “You know how we used to say that maybe the only way we could have, you know, a real relationship was with another hunter?”

Dean nods. “Yeah. Like Jesse and Cesar.”

“Well here, everyone’s a hunter, more or less. Here, we’re normal, Dean. I don’t have to lie to Michelle and I don’t have to worry about her getting tangled up in the supernatural, because that’s just the way it is here. It’s…liberating.”

Dean frowns. Sam has always valued safety and normality and this world is just about as far from safe and normal as you can get.

“Really? You wouldn’t rather be safe?”

Sam shrugs. “Safe is just a childish fantasy. There’s no such thing as safe. In this world or ours. At least we’re trained to face whatever comes our way. And here, we can live openly in the real world. We don’t have to creep around in some hidden shadow-world that most people know nothing about. We’re not freaks here, Dean.”

Dean can’t help feeling sceptical. “So you’re saying you wanna stay here? Seriously?”

Sam settles back against the tree trunk and takes another sip of water. “I don’t know, Dean. Maybe I’m just trying to rationalize things. What I do know, is that I really like Michelle. And I really like not having to lie to her about who…and what…I am.”

\--

They’ve only been back on the road again for another half hour when they’re attacked by bounty hunters, who make the mistake of shooting Cas with their poison. Cas is able to metabolize the poison with his angel healing powers and the rest of the team are able to kill two of the bounty hunters and send the other two scampering. Ketch is all for going after them, but Charlie says that in her experience, if you’re too hard a target, bounty hunters will give up on you and chase after someone easier. She’s an Apocalypse world native, so they decide to follow her advice and keep going.

The team stops an hour before dark and sets up camp. They heat up some baked beans and Ketch hunts them up a squirrel which they roast over an open fire.

They take it in turns to keep watch. Dean takes first watch and then wakes Sam up, before settling down in his sleeping roll. The night air is cold and Dean’s really keyed up, but he manages to fall asleep eventually.

\--

Dean wakes abruptly and comes up fighting…only to realize that he’s not out in the woods with Sam, Ketch, Charlie and Liesel, but back in that cell. So he’s dreaming again, but it feels so real. 

He climbs out of the cot and crosses to the window and... _holy_ _shit_. It’s worse than it’s ever been. His cell seems to be in some kind of abandoned church this time around and there are a whole bunch of dirty, bloody people hanging from chains. One man is bound to a chair, bleeding steadily into a goblet from a cut in his throat.

_“A little of this...a little of that,”_ says the Voice, _“and…_

Dean frowns. The perspective is all wrong. He can see a hand. He can see the goblet. He watches as the man in the chair is forced to drink and…it’s almost like…playing a first person shooter game.

What the actual fuck?

_“Yes. Good boy.”_

Dean watches as the man chokes and gasps, then flames out.

_“Hmm. Too much ‘that’,”_ says the Voice. _“How disappointing.”_

The man’s body is dragged from the chair and dropped on the floor, which is when Dean notices that there’s a huge pile of bodies in the corner of the room. What’s going on? Why is he seeing this? Is he supposed to stop it? Experience tells him that he won’t have any success. That if the owner of the booming Voice notices him, all that happens is that he wakes up back in the real world.

He looks back at the line of people hanging in chains.

_“Alright. Who’s next?”_ the Voice says cheerily.

Dean’s had enough. He bangs on the window and shouts and sure enough, his head just about implodes and he can’t breathe. He’s drowning, being pushed down into a dark, water-like void and there’s nothing, _nothing_ he can do about it.

“Hey!”

Dean wakes up with a start. Ketch is standing over him, glaring.

“Do you want to attract every monster within a five mile radius?”

“What?” Dean says.

“You were screaming,” Ketch says, his face is so close Dean can feel the warmth of his breath and see the irritation in his eyes.

“Sorry,” Dean says shortly. “Bad dream.”

Ketch’s face softens, just a little. “We all have those,” he says, “could you try to have yours a little more quietly, please?”

Dean isn’t exactly in control of his nightmares, but he has no intention of admitting any kind of weakness to Ketch; he’s already embarrassed enough. Instead he goes on the offensive, calling attention to the way Ketch is straddling him, face so close.

“You wanna back off a little, Ketch? You ain’t my type.”

Ketch smirks. “You sure about that? Sounded like you had a pretty good time with Cassie _and_ Malik the other night.”

Dean glowers. “Dude, you slept with my mother.”

Ketch pulls a face. “Fair point,” he climbs off Dean. “We may as well get up and moving. It’ll be dawn soon.”

They fix themselves a light breakfast, take care of their morning ablutions and pack up the camp. According to Bobby’s map, they should be hitting the general vicinity of the area where they’re most likely to intercept the angels and their prisoners in about three hours; which, if Cas’s monitoring of Angel Radio is right, will be about two hours before the angels get there.

Dean had been a little worried that the other angels would be able to sense Cas’s presence, but Charlie reassured them all that this whole area is so thick with angelic activity that one more angel in the area won’t raise any suspicions.

It’s a little before midday when Cas suddenly sits up very straight, his head cocked to one side.

“We’ve got incoming,” he hisses. “From both the east and the west.”

A moment later half a dozen angels appear in the middle of them and Dean is shooting before he’s even fully processed their arrival. Two go down immediately, but that still leaves four.

Cas has his angel blade out and is locked in a duel with one of them and the other three are busy flinging the rebels about, cutting off their airways and other neat tricks like that.

Castiel wins his battle and wings scorch the earth around a fallen body. The other angels falter, briefly, and it’s enough for Dean to bring his AK up and around shooting another one; two.

Now Castiel is in another duel and all of the rest of the rebels are ganging up on the one remaining angel, who can’t keep them all subdued at once. Realizing that she’s in serious trouble, she vanishes, retreating, presumably, to warn the other angels that their trap has not been successful.

“Cas, duck,” Dean calls.

Thankfully, Cas ducks and Dean shoots the attacking angel.

“Nice going, Cas,” Dean says. “I was a little worried you were going to ask me where the duck was.”

Cas looks affronted at that and Dean smirks. “Do we have a guinea pig, Cas?”

Castiel rolls his eyes. “The angels coming in from the east are close. We should move quickly to intercept them,” he pauses. “They will be expecting us. It will be a tough fight.”


	3. Chapter 3

_Tough fight_ doesn’t even begin to cover it. Dean is sure he’s a goner at least three times, but his ass is pulled out of the fire, once by Ketch, once by Cas and once thanks to his own cunning. They do lose Liesel though, which makes Charlie falter and they nearly lose her too. Thankfully, Sam is able to get there in time and after that Charlie becomes a whirlwind of death and destruction, raining down judgement on any angel who comes close.

Eventually, the surviving angels retreat, abandoning their prisoners, because Apocalypse World angels are pussies if they don’t have Michael directing their play.

The prisoners are in sacks and for a brief moment Dean’s a little nervous that they’re going to cut the sacks open and find that they contain, not captive humans, but some kind of lethal creature, designed to finish them off. But then he remembers that these angels never had an opportunity to develop human cunning, and besides, Cas says he only senses humans, so Dean figures his spidey-sense tingling is probably just paranoia.

Inside the sacks they find four tightly bound and blindfolded humans. Because the universe likes to fuck with Dean the humans turn out to be this world’s version of people he knows; namely Victor Henriksen, Jesse & Cesar, and that girl who worked with Irv sometimes; good shot; smart mouth; what was her name? Tracy something?

Charlie’s helping Tracy to stand up and get her bearings, reassuring her, and Sam and Ketch are doing the same with Jesse and Cesar. Cas is standing back in case someone figures him for an angel and tries to kill him and Dean? Dean is staring at Victor with a suddenly dry mouth.

“Do I know you?” Victor says, eyes narrowing.

Dean shakes his head. “I’m from a parallel world. I knew the you who lived there. Special Agent Victor Henriksen.”

Victor’s eyes widen and then narrow again. “What are you?” he says. “Angel? Demon? How do you know my name?”

Dean sighs. “I’m human. Dean Winchester. And like I said, I’m from a parallel world. So is my brother Sam, and our friend Arthur Ketch, and Cas. Now don’t panic, but Cas is an angel,” _that_ pronouncement attracts the nervous attention of the entire group, “but he’s an angel from our world, not yours, so he ain’t a douchebag. He’s here to help.”

Charlie nods. “It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. He’s on our side.”

“Hello,” Cas says solemnly. “I mean you no harm.”

“Uh huh,” Victor’s eyeing Cas sceptically. He flicks his eyes to Dean. “Parallel world, huh?”

Dean nods.

“Where angels aren’t monsters?”

Dean nods again.

“Huh,” Victor says. “And I’m a Special Agent?”

“Yep. A real pain in my ass too, until you figured out what was really out there.”

“Maybe we could save the catch up for later,” Tracy interrupts, “and focus on getting the hell outta here before the angels come back with reinforcements.”

Dean’s definitely down with that plan.

The journey back to base is quiet; which is probably just as well, because with Victor by his side, Dean finds himself caught up in old memories.

When they first crossed paths with Victor they didn’t even know about angels. Back then, Dean thought the worst that could happen was that Sam might go dark side and lead a demon army against humanity. Not that Dean had believed that was actually a possibility; there isn’t an evil bone in Sam’s body. But, and Dean can admit this now, they both tend to lose their moral compasses a little when the other one is in danger. It’s how the angels have always manipulated them.

Dean wonders sometimes how things would’ve played out if he hadn’t sold his soul for Sam. Would the angels have found some other way to bring Sam back to life and get Dean into Hell?

“You’re thinking awful loud over there, Sparky,” Victor says.

Dean smiles wanly. “Yeah. Seeing you again,” he shakes his head, but leaves the sentence incomplete. There’s too much history, too much to try to explain.

Victor side-eyes Dean. “Did we have something going on in your world? Am I an ex or something?”

Dean’s feet stumble over nothing and he nearly falls flat on his face. “Uh, what? No.”

Victor tilts his head. “What then?”

Dean has to take a moment to steady his breathing, because it’s not like Victor hadn’t starred in a few of Dean’s fantasies after that Job at Green River and when Victor had let them go after the demon siege in Colorado, Dean had been really looking forward to working with him in the future, getting to know him better. Losing Victor the way they did…it’s an old pain now, but seeing him again—or at least this world’s version of him—is bringing it all back.  

“You, uh, didn’t know what was really out there at first,” Dean says. “You thought I was a psycho serial killer, so you were gunning for me. You even arrested me and Sam one time.”

“Oh,” Victor’s face falls. “Sorry?” he frowns. “Wait. At first? So I did find out?”

Dean nods. “Yeah. And you…you were awesome, so on board with kicking evil’s ass. I really thought we’d made a great ally.”

“I’m sensing a _but_ ,” Victor says dryly.

“You died,” Dean says bluntly. “Tortured to death by a demon, because you helped me and Sam.”

“Oh,” Victor says again. “Well that sucks.”

Dean tries for a smile. “Yeah. It’s pretty high on the list of things I’m never gonna forgive myself for.”

Victor looks at him sharply. “Not your fault. The blame belongs to the demon that did the deed, not you.”

Dean shakes his head. “I should’ve considered the possibility that she’d come after you, should’ve--”

Victor cuts him off. “Saving everybody in the world ain’t on your shoulders, Dean.”

Dean snorts. “Yeah, well, tell that to the angels and the demons and God and his frigging sister. Somehow, saving the world always seems to land at our feet.”

He takes his silver flask out of his jacket pocket, unscrews the lid and takes a long drink, before offering the flask to Victor.

Victor takes a cautious sniff and an even more cautious sip. His eyebrows rise dramatically.

“Wow, that is some good whiskey. I haven’t had a drink that good since before the war.”

Dean shrugs. “Where I’m from, we stopped the apocalypse.”

Victor whistles, low and impressed. “Is that why you’re here? To help us stop this one?”

Dean shakes his head. “Some of our people got sucked into a portal by accident. The rest of us came through to rescue them and then we all got stuck. But while we’re here, we’ll help out as much as we can.”

Victor smiles. “Good.”

\--

The Apocalypse World rebels sure know how to throw a party. And any excuse will do. Successfully rescuing four human prisoners destined for execution by the angels, is definitely grounds for an epic celebration.  Dean drinks until he can’t stand up. It doesn’t take as long as usual, because the alcohol here is home brewed rot-gut and it’s hella strong.  He staggers, half-blind, back to the tent he shares with Sam, and crashes hard.

He dreams about werewolves. He’s meeting with an alpha, trying to forge some kind of alliance. But the dream is muted; blurred; like he’s looking up at something from the bottom of the ocean. He opens his mouth and he’s choking; can’t breathe. Drowning. Dean flails. He kicks and punches and there’s pressure, so much pressure. He’s going to implode. He’s going to die. He’s going.

_“Dean!”_

Sam’s beside him, holding him down by the wrists.

“Let me go.”

Sam releases him and Dean sits up, shaking. He looks around the tent, shadowed in the pre-dawn light.

“You okay, man?” Sam’s eyes are puppy-dog wide, his shoulders tense.

“Yeah,” Dean rubs a hand across his jaw. “Bad dream.”

It’s way too early to get up, but Dean isn’t getting back to sleep any time soon, so he pulls on some clothes and tells Sam he’s going to get some air. Sam asks if he wants some company, but Dean shakes his head.

The air is crisp and the sky is a deep blue-grey as Dean walks in-between the rusted skeletal remains of old cars, his hands deep in his jacket pockets. A faint orange line begins to appear at the horizon and Dean’s so busy watching it that he almost doesn’t see the silhouette of a man leaning nonchalantly against the twisted hood of a Buick, eyes on the sky.

He considers just walking on by, but in the end he wanders over and takes up position beside Victor.

“Pretty isn’t it?” Victor says.

Dean nods. He doesn’t remember the last time he actually looked at a sunrise; properly _looked_. Victor’s right. It’s incredibly beautiful.

“The Angels told me my time was up,” Victor says. “I spent the whole night lying in my cell making lists of all the things I was never gonna get to do again. When they came for me yesterday morning,” Victor shakes his head, “they said there’d been a change of plan,” he snorts. “I thought they were fucking with me,” he turns to look at Dean. “Is this real?”

Dean reaches out and punches him on the arm.

“Ow!” Victor rubs at his arm.

“What do you think? Did that feel real to you?”

Victor huffs out a laugh. “Yeah. Yeah it did,” he regards Dean solemnly for a moment. “So. Special Agent, huh?”

Dean frowns. “You weren’t one here?”

Victor shakes his head. “I was a cop. I majored in Criminal Justice in college, was planning on going to law school, but,” he shrugs. “In the end I decided I wanted a more hands on job. Probably a good thing too. Being a cop meant I had the training to survive the Apocalypse,” his face shadows briefly. “Not everybody did. My partner. Jackson,” he shakes his head.

“Your partner was a guy? The Victor in my world had a bunch of ex-wives.”

Victor inclines his head. “Police partner,” he clarifies. “And I have a bunch of ex-wives too. Three to be exact. And an ex-husband.”

“Oh,” Dean says. He’s still not used to the subtle differences in this world, the way sexuality is just not as fraught as it is in his world. “Any kids?”

“Nah. Low sperm count,” Victor shrugs. “I’m a three on the Kinsey Scale so once I knew I couldn’t have kids, I figured I’d stick to guys for a while. And then the apocalypse happened. Darren thought we should cooperate with the angels. Didn’t like me being involved with the rebels. Technically, we’re still married, but seeing as the entire legal system and government collapsed years ago, I figured I could just say ‘I divorce you’ three times and have it count.”

Victor turns to look at Dean full on. The sun is now a bright halo sitting low in the sky and it lights Victor up like he’s some kind of divine revelation.

“There’s a rusty old Ram Van over there,” VIctor nods in the direction of a white-and-yellow striped Dodge B-series van, circa the early 1970s. “It doesn’t have any wheels, but it does have a mattress in the back. You up for it?”

Dean’s mouth goes dry and he swallows. “Up for what?”

Victor gives him a look that there’s no mistaking. “That list of things I didn’t think I’d ever get to do again? There’s a few things on it I would love to do with you,” Victor frowns, so Dean figures he must look as panicked as he feels. “Or are you a zero? It’s no big deal if you’re not interested.”

Dean takes a deep breath. “Not a zero. Not uninterested. It’s just…where I’m from? Our world? Not being a zero was a big deal. That part of me is something I’ve been hiding for a long time. And I’ve had threesomes with a guy and a girl, but I’ve never been with just a guy before.”

Victor’s grin is sharp-edged and triumphant. He holds out a hand. “Oh baby,” he says. “I am gonna rock your world.”

\--

Victor fucks the way he does everything; with ruthless determination and single-minded focus. Dean’s not gonna lie; he’s a little out of his depth and a lot helplessly turned on as Victor opens him up with fingers and tongue. There’s no lube, nothing to ease the way except spit and sweat and Dean’s own pre-come which is already dribbling out as Victor strokes his cock ‘til he’s on the edge of completion, before backing off and sticking his come-slick fingers back into Dean’s ass, stretching and scissoring.

“Roll over,” Victor says and Dean complies, canting his hips and trying to stay relaxing as Victor pushes his way inside, in careful, controlled, incremental nudges. He’s almost surprised when he feels Vic’s hips against his ass and then Victor pulls half way out and fucks back in, deep and hard, practically skewering Dean’s p-spot and punching a loud groan out of Dean’s throat.

“Fuck,” he says, dropping down so that his cheek and shoulder are smooshed against a ratty blanket that smells of mothballs. The position allows him to get a hand on his dick and he’s jacking himself lazily, thinking he’s really not going to last much longer when Victor drops down on top of him and then rolls them so that they’re lying on their sides. He bats Dean’s hand off his dick and takes charge of working Dean toward orgasm, with firm, assured strokes. Victor leaves his cock buried deep; his hips flush against Dean’s ass. He circles his hips slowly and then thrusts hard; rinse and repeat.

Dean gives himself up to sensation. He lets himself make incoherent noises of praise and gratitude. He even begs Victor to let him come, although he’ll deny it later. Victor finally climaxes, dick planted deep, and then he holds himself right there while he brings Dean off with clever fingers, his cock throbbing and pulsing against Dean’s p-spot. Dean comes with a shout that tears from his throat, uncontrolled and then they lie still, pressed together, sweaty and sticky, breathing hard.

“Oh boy,” Victor says. “I needed that.”

 Dean snorts.

“And so did you,” Victor adds.

Dean twists his head, eyebrow raised. “Hey now, I get laid plenty.”

Victor smirks. “I bet you do. But not like that. You don’t let go easy, Dean, but once in a while, you need someone else to take the wheel.”

Dean rolls his eyes. “Thank you Sigmund Freud. You wanna get out my ass now?”

Victor sighs and pulls out.

They clean up as best they can and then wander into camp together. Sam and Michelle are on breakfast duty and Sam watches Dean with narrowed eyes as he makes his way to where Sam is brewing up a big pot of coffee.

“Everything alright?” Sam murmurs as he pours Dean a cup.

Dean nods and moves along to Michelle for some fried eggs and flat bread. 

Sam’s still watching him when he sits down (carefully) at one of the camp tables. Victor sits beside him and Sam looks from one to the other and then his eyes widen. Dean raises his chin and his eyebrows and Sam smiles and nods and goes back to his breakfast duties.

Enough said.

\--

Dean’s out with a hunting party trying to rustle up some fresh meat for supper when the trees in front of him suddenly slide out of focus, like he’s seeing them through a frosted glass panel. And then they flicker briefly, like a television screen on the fritz, before coming back into sharp focus again. Dean blinks. He tilts his head. For a brief moment everything washes out in tones of blue and steel and Dean closes his eyes. When he opens them again everything is back to normal.

And then the camp’s air raid siren sounds.

Everyone freezes and then as one, they abandon the pig they were hunting and hurry back to camp.

The camp is in turmoil. The angels may not be able to get in, but they can still hurl fireballs from the sky.  Dean can hear screaming and someone— _Sam!_ —shouting instructions, taking command, getting people focused. The hunting team skids to a halt just a few yards short of the warding, blocked from entering by three angels, one with a familiar face.

“Zachariah,” Dean says.

Zachariah sneers.

“Fire in the hole!” Dean hears his mom shout and then there’s a roar and a boom and a couple of angels fall out of the sky.

Dean sniggers.

Zachariah and his buddies attack.

Dean wields his angel blade with skill, but _this_ Zachariah isn’t a pencil pusher; he’s a seasoned warrior, and he doesn’t play fair. He pins Dean to a tree trunk with a gesture and then rams his blade through Dean’s shoulder. It’s agony and Dean can’t keep from crying out.

Zachariah flickers like a particularly sketchy ghost and for a handful of seconds Dean sees Dark Kaia, holding that spear thing of hers over him, but then she flickers and Zachariah is back.

The angel smirks and draws back his angel blade, and as Dean stares at him, waiting for the inevitable, light explodes from Zachariah’s every orifice and the tip of an angel blade comes through his chest.

Zachariah falls to the ground surrounded by a giant imprint of wings and Cas is standing there, holding his sword. He grins down at Dean, but his grin morphs into a look of concern when he sees Dean’s shoulder, which is, huh, actually bleeding quite badly.

“Dean,” Cas says gravely. “You are hurt.”

“It’s just a scratch,” Dean says.

His face feels hot and there’s a roaring sound in his ears.

The ground hurtles toward him and Cas reaches out for him and the next thing that Dean is aware of is that he’s lying in a tent, blinking up at a canvas ceiling.

“Dean!” Sam says, his voice thick with relief.

“M’ok,” Dean says. His tongue feels thick in his mouth and his words slur.

Sam’s answering smile is sad. “You’re really not,” he says. “You lost a lot of blood and the wound got infected.  “You’ve been out for almost three days.”

Oh. Dean wants to say something, to reassure his brother, but Sam is flickering and fading, the world around him distorts and shimmers, and from one blink to the next Dean is transported to a bar. He’s standing behind the counter, polishing a glass and he looks around, frowning.

The place looks familiar, but he can’t place it. The color’s not right; it’s all a sort of washed-out sepia, so Dean figures he must be dreaming. Maybe he’s unconscious again? He only seems to have one customer, a black man wearing a hoodie, who has a glass in his hand and his head down on the bar’s counter, like he’s passed out.

“Hey,” Dean says, “you okay, man?”

The man raises his head and Dean’s insides turn to ice. It’s Michael.

“Hello, Dean,” he says.

And then the man, very slowly, morphs into Dean. Dean’s jaw drops and he stares at himself wearing an expensive three-piece suit with sharply parted hair.

“What the…?” he mutters, taking a step backwards.

“You are a hard man to keep down,” Michael says.

“What?” Dean says.

Michael runs his fingers along the bar-top. “This was the first world I built for you, you know? This bar. You and alcohol seem to have a close, committed relationship…you _need_ it. So I figured a bar would be perfect for you,” Michael frowns. “But you kept wanting to leave. To go home. You kept fretting about Sam. And Cas. And your mom and Jack. You _resisted_ me. You… _squirmed_. It was…uncomfortable. So I looked through your memories, searching for some way of keeping you…submerged,” Michael pauses. “You have a lot of irrelevant trivia stored in your brain, Dean, and I nearly made the mistake of overlooking it. But there’s where I found they key.

“In your memories of all the movies you’ve watched there was one called The Matrix. It explained to me what I had to do. I had to build a more complete world for you. I had to give you the people you love. I had to make them be happy in your world, so that you would want to stay, for them. I had to give you some of the things you want, but won’t allow yourself to have out in the real world. And I had to give you some adversity; some pain; so that you would believe in the world. So I gave you _my_ world; wiped your memories of the last few months and trapped you there with all the people you love. And it was working,” Michaels scowls.

Dean stands utterly motionless, paralyzed with horror. He’s starting to remember things. Like going through the rift with a whole bunch of apocalypse world survivors; like making a deal with Michael; like fighting Lucifer. He remembers being betrayed.

And yeah, he remembers the bar. 

“Why are you telling me this?” he asks.

Because Michael is right. The fake world that Michael had created for him had been working. Yes, there’d been glitches. The dreams. Dean understands now that they were actually glimpses of reality. And more recently the distortions. Huh. So maybe Michael’s fake world was breaking down.

“I was injured in a fight,” Michael says. “Quite badly. It takes a lot of power to maintain a world this complex and it’s not something I can focus on right now. I’m a busy man. But don’t worry, Dean. I have a better plan now.”

Dean raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

Michael’s smile is beatific. “Oh yes. I’m going to let you go.”

Okay, that? Dean hadn’t expected at all. “Why?”

Michael’s smile widens. “You won’t remember this conversation. All you’ll remember is,” he inclines his head, “Dark Kaia’s spear. You will come to learn that it’s the only thing in this world that can hurt me. You will become obsessed with possessing it; with killing me with it.”

Dean lifts his chin. “Sounds like a pretty good idea to me.”

Michael chuckles. “Of course it does, Dean. I know you now. I know how to play you like a fiddle.”

Dean gives Michael an insincere smile. “And I thought the fiddle was the Devil’s instrument.”

Michael laughs. He swirls the Scotch in his glass and takes a sip. “Well,” he says. “We _are_ brothers,” he raises his glass in toast. “Until we meet again, Dean,” he says.

And then there’s a burst of hot white light and Dean finds himself standing in a run-down Church. It’s familiar. Dean’s sure he’s been here before.

Also? What the Hell is he wearing?

The doors in front of him abruptly swing open and he sees Sam, his mom and Bobby.

And half a dozen decapitated bodies.

For a moment he thinks he’s back in Apocalypse World, but Sam looks genuinely worried—and he has a _beard_ —so Dean figures he’s back in the real world.

Dean’s not sure _why_ Michael left, but he knows there’s something really important he has to remember. Something vitally important he has to do. It’s all a bit fuzzy right now, but Dean thinks he learnt something absolutely crucial while Michael was in his head.

Maybe he learned a way to defeat him, once and for all; if only he can remember what it is.

He starts walking toward Sam, his mom and Bobby, but after only a few steps he starts to feel shaky and nauseated. He steadies himself against a nearby pillar and takes off the annoying as fuck hat that Michael put on his head. He takes a deep breath.

“Sammy,” he says. “It’s me.”

He slides down the pillar, onto his ass and Sam, Bobby and his mom move cautiously toward him.

“Dean?” Sam squats down in front of him; puts a tentative hand on his knee. “Is it really you?”

“Yeah, it’s really me.”

“Are…are you okay?”

Dean grimaces, because really? “No, I’m not okay,” he snarks.

His mom smiles slightly at that.

“But…you got Michael to leave.”

“No,” Dean shakes his head, “Nah, I don’t…I didn’t.”

“What?” Bobby says.

Dean meets his eyes. “He just left.”

“Why?” Sam asks.

Dean shakes his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Dean’s not worried about that though, because Sam is by his side, there’s no one riding shotgun in his noggin, and Dean has a deep-seated sense that, right now, he’s _exactly_ where he’s supposed to be.

_The End_

**Author's Note:**

> I started pondering this story and writing bits of it at the end of Season 13. Michael had walked off with Dean's body! What next? I was curious about what life would be like for Dean, trapped inside his own mind, with Michael at the wheel. I signed up for the Dean Winchester Big Bang and started writing in earnest following Dean's return in episode two. I had this mostly finished by hiatus. So I guess this can be called a canon divergence, sort of what happened, but with my own twist. I hope you've enjoyed reading.


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